Alberta Premier Danielle Smith gives an update on the Alberta wildfire situation, in Edmonton on May 15. The Premier, in a video released last week, said the government would protect free speech by reviewing the power wielded by professional colleges and regulating bodies, such as the Law Society of Alberta.JASON FRANSON/The Canadian Press
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who came to power with support from the right flank of her party, has rolled out a new promise in an effort to secure that group’s continued approval: the Jordan Peterson Law.
United Conservative Party members on Nov. 2 will vote on whether they approve of Ms. Smith’s leadership and she spent Saturday campaigning on her right-wing bona fides. Roughly 6,000 UCP members have purchased tickets to the party’s annual meeting in Red Deer and Ms. Smith is working to shore up support.
The Premier, in a video released last week, said the government would protect free speech by reviewing the power wielded by professional colleges and regulating bodies, such as the Law Society of Alberta. Jordan Peterson, who has had a protracted battle with the College of Psychologists of Ontario, is the darling of this niche fight.
Ms. Smith, at a virtual town hall Saturday for UCP annual-meeting attendees, promoted her plan to protect free speech by stripping professional colleges and regulating bodies of some powers.
“We might sub-name it the Jordan Peterson Law. I think we all watched with disdain and horror as his college essentially called him forward for re-education after doing some mean tweets,” she said.
The College of Psychologists of Ontario in 2022 determined comments Mr. Peterson made on social media could be potentially harmful to public trust in the profession and directed him to undergo coaching. He was unsuccessful in his court fight against the order.
Ms. Smith said the UCP would take action against the province’s 67 professional colleges and regulating bodies next spring or fall. “It is very clear to us that the professional colleges are way outside their scope,” Ms. Smith said. “And the fact that the courts did not stand up for his free speech says to me that the provincial governments have just given too much dictatorial authority to the professional colleges. So we’re going to rein that in.”
The Premier also made her pitch Saturday at a conference hosted by True North News, a right-wing media organization align with the UCP’s right. She brought up Mr. Peterson during her Saturday call-in radio spot, too.
Ms. Smith spent the summer and early fall hosting town halls for UCP members throughout the province. Her predecessor, former premier Jason Kenney, stepped down as leader of the UCP after receiving support from 51 per cent of members who voted in his leadership review in 2022. The party’s rules do not stipulate what counts as a win, but 77 per cent serves as a psychological marker among Alberta conservatives. Former conservative premiers Alison Redford and Ed Stelmach both received 77-per-cent support before being ousted.
The Premier’s Office did not acknowledge a request for an interview or comment.
Ms. Smith’s detractors concede she enjoys far more support than Mr. Kenney did when he faced an internal party revolt. Opposition to her leadership is fractured and lacks a defining issue. The remnants of Take Back Alberta (TBA), which staunchly opposed Mr. Kenney and enthusiastically supported Ms. Smith, now consists of disjointed pockets of support and dissent.
Cameron Davies, a political operative once fined by Elections Alberta for his role in a scheme to install Mr. Kenney as the UCP’s inaugural leader, is wrangling UCP members to vote against Ms. Smith. His pitch underlines how the push to tear down Ms. Smith does not have a unifying theme, such as TBA’s campaign against Mr. Kenney’s public-health restrictions and vaccine mandates during COVID.
“Voting ‘Yes’ in this review means you agree with the largest budgets in Alberta history, an increase in AHS middle managers, a declining GDP growth, and a massive increase in government overall,” Mr. Davies said in a statement. “Smith is a self-declared non-social conservative, and she is governing the opposite of a fiscal conservative.”
Ms. Smith, who is skeptical of mRNA vaccines that shield recipients against COVID, has not been able to avoid lingering anger tied to the pandemic. On Monday evening, some of her dissenters will host a gathering in Red Deer to rehash their pandemic frustrations, in lieu of a UCP constituency association cancelling the second edition of an event dubbed Injection of Truth. TBA and the 1905 Committee, an upstart group that is home to some former TBA supporters, are among the event’s sponsors.
Jonathan Baynes is a director for the Alberta Prosperity Project, an organization that favours Alberta sovereignty but not separation. He believes UCP members will overwhelmingly vote in favour of Ms. Smith’s leadership, and her detractors are both impatient and focused on their own pet projects.
“I think they are short-sighted. They don’t have the support from the majority of people,” Mr. Baynes said in an interview. “Their naiveté of how government works is sometimes more destructive than their enthusiasm to seek change.”
Alberta’s legislature reconvenes Monday and the government has teed up plans based on policy proposals UCP members supported at the party’s last AGM, including limiting access to medical treatment for transgender youth.
The government will also roll out changes Monday to beef up the Alberta Bill of Rights. The government, in a statement Oct. 25, said changes include “the right not to be given medical care, treatment or a vaccine without consent; the right to acquire, keep and use firearms in accordance with the law; and strengthened property rights.”
John Williams, a board member for two UCP constituency associations, thinks the vast majority of members will back Ms. Smith. The government’s proposed Bill of Rights will not satisfy all members, but he believes it will be enough.
“There are people you can never please,” he said.